


Serious Writer Mindset

by BerryBagel



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Everyone Is Alive, F/M, Fluff, Humor, POV Outsider, Weddings, the losers being insufferable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 13:03:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20693993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BerryBagel/pseuds/BerryBagel
Summary: Bill and Audra are invited to a wedding.  Events are misrepresented.





	Serious Writer Mindset

Bill has been in his _serious_ _writer_ mindset recently. That’s fine. Audra can work with that, because she gets it. Sometimes she has to really immerse herself in her roles, in order to work her best. Bill is the same way, but with his writing. He’s really excited about this new book. She can pull him away from the laptop for meals, but even then he’s scratching down notes on a little pad of paper.

So he tells her his childhood friends are getting married, and that’s great, he’s very happy for them, they’re the perfect match for each other. It’s going to be a short ceremony, with a small reception. A more intimate gathering of friends, Bill explains. Then he returns to frenzied typing about spiders, because the monsters in this books are spiders.

Audra can vibe with that. Not the spiders, per say, but the wedding invitation. It’s been years since she’s been to a small wedding. These days, it’s all big tacky weddings. Moreover, she’s  _ never _ met any of Bill’s childhood friends, so that’s exciting as well. Bill doesn’t like to talk about his childhood, but after his sudden unexplained trip last summer, he’s been opening up more. He still doesn’t talk about  _ events _ , per say, but he’ll reminisce fondly about his band of compatriots.

It’s nice that after whatever hellish experience Bill had last summer, at least he and his little childhood gang were able to reconnect. The unfamiliar names  _ Mike Hanlon _ and  _ Stanley Uris _ have cropped up in Bill’s Facebook friends list. They’ll be at this wedding, too, Bill confirms. Audra scrolls through their pages and tries to commit their faces to memory.

She keeps the date clear on her calendar, notated with a little heart doodle. She buys a dress, light blue but nowhere near white. It’ll be perfectly appropriate for a nice backyard wedding, which is, to the best of her understanding, what this wedding is going to be. Two small-town childhood sweethearts, tying the knot.

Then Bill goes ahead and name-drops the happy couple, and that changes the picture a bit. Jesus, Audra loves Bill, but he can be such a guy sometimes. There are dresses that are acceptable for normal small wedding, and then there are dresses that are acceptable to wear to the wedding of  _ distinguished designer Beverly Marsh _ . Jesus. Audra has seen designs by this woman worn on the red carpet, and she was about to show up at her wedding wearing a dress with spaghetti straps.

She’ll have to find a better suit for Bill, while she’s at it. He’s still only ten chapters in on the killer spiders.

* * *

“You must be Beverly’s sister.” says the third person so far this evening.

“No relation, actually.” Audra explains. “My husband and Beverly were childhood friends.”

She smiles politely as the third person so far this evening takes a moment to very obviously psychoanalyze her husband. She’s seen the bride for perhaps ten collective seconds so far, and sure, there’s a passing resemblance, but people are acting as if they look like twins. It’s like these fools have never seen more than one redheaded woman in their lives.

She changes the subject to architecture, because that’s a safe bet with this crowd. She’d thought it was a weird shared interest for so many people to have, until Bill clarified that the groom is apparently the CEO of an...architecture firm, or something. And most of his friends are work friends. Audra has never given much thought to what her favorite buildings are, but now that she’s on the spot she feels like she’s doing a passable job of bluffing her way through.

Bill isn’t being much help. He’s been standing at Audra’s elbow the entire time, searching the crowd for his old neighborhood crew. Because there  _ is _ a crowd.  _ Small wedding _ , her ass. She’s been to movie premieres with less attendees than this wedding. Most of the guests look like kiss-ass employees, but hey, they’re still here.

* * *

The ceremony really is lovely. At least three people tear up in Audra’s row of seats. The bride is glowing. Do people say that about weddings, or mostly just pregnancies? Audra isn’t sure, so she won’t comment out loud, but there’s definitely a luminescent quality at play.

They wrote their own vows, because of course they did. That’s exactly the kind of thing childhood sweethearts do. The groom has his written on the back of a postcard. Bill laughs at that. Audra takes his hand, and Bill whispers that he’ll explain, after. She keeps their hands clasped together, and Bill gives her a look full of love. He used to sometimes look at her like he was off somewhere else, trying desperately to remember something in her face. She had thought that look was dreamy, far-away and romantic, but she prefers this clear-eyed affection.

* * *

Bill and Audra find their table at the reception. They’re the first to sit down, and Bill excitedly reads all the other seats’ name placards. As people continue to file into the reception hall, the round table is gradually filled with all of Bill’s favorite...freaks?

“ _ Losers _ ,” he corrects. He cycles through their names. “Mike, Eddie, Richie, and Stanley.”

There’s an empty seat between Stanley and Audra. Patty Uris got awful food poisoning last night, and couldn’t make it. Audra makes sympathetic noises, and harbors the somewhat uncharitable suspicion that Patty Uris just didn’t want to deal with the most cliquey in-group on this side of middle school. Every minute said  _ Losers _ spend together, they spiral deeper into total incomprehensibility.

The two men across the table from her are apparently recently engaged themselves. Audra has a brief spike of optimism that one of them may also be playing the role of  _ alienated spouse _ this evening. Ultimately, that’s a false hope, because apparently all of Bill’s childhood friends grew up and decided to just marry each other. For having moved a myriad of places across the country, they certainly didn’t cast very wide nets.

Stanley finishes his story about visiting the Everglades National Park with his wife. He’s been telling the story for about fifteen minutes. It’s not actually a very long story. In fact, it could be pretty much summarized as  _ Stanley visited the Everglades National Park with his wife _ , but no one can let the poor guy finish a sentence without cutting in some unrelated idea or anecdote. Mike has always wanted to visit Florida. Eddie, or maybe that’s Richie, the one with the glasses, was just in Florida for a show last month. Stanley apparently forgets entirely about his Everglades story, tells Richie he saw the show, and  _ has _ his girlfriend caught him masturbating recently? Everybody thinks that funny, so it must be a reference to something. Eddie-but-probably-actually-Richie liberally passes around good-natured  _ Fuck You _ ’s to everyone.

Audra looks around at some of the nearby tables. There's ten people at all of them. The happy couple must have correctly surmised that nobody else deserved to be submitted to this aggressively tight-knit group. According to Bill, the Losers all only just reconnected last summer, during the undisclosable traumatic mystery events. They've apparently decided to make up for lost time by sharing literally every aspect of their lives with each other, in rapid succession, in no apparent order. Even Bill has snapped out of  _ serious writer _ mode to reminisce about...the time he and Mike dropped acid together? That can't possibly be right, so Audra assumes she's misheard.

* * *

Everyone pipes down for the first dance. This seems like a super-cool, elegant couple, and Audra half expects them to have something choreographed. As with so many of her expectations, that turns out to not be the case. Ben and Beverly focus on each other with single-minded admiration, swaying together to a sweeping orchestral number.

“ _ This is that song _ .” Eddie whispers.  _ Stage _ whispers, really. Audra is across the table and she hears him just fine.

“No shit?” Richie says back, not bothering to whisper but realistically at about the same volume. It's a good thing they aren’t particularly close to the dance floor.

“The New Kids on the Block one? Except...instrumental.” Eddie clarifies. “ _ I Love You Forever _ ? Or... _ I’m Loving You Forever _ ? The one...shit, you know what I’m talking about, right?”

“I hear it.” Mike agrees.

“Bet there's a story behind that.” Bill says.

* * *

Ben and Beverly make their rounds through the reception hall. By the time they make it to the Losers’ table, dinner has been finished and the shenanigans have only escalated. Mike has removed his jacket in order to more effectively yell about turtles at Bill. Richie is telling a story that’s one part words to nine parts hand movement. Eddie and Stanley have foregone actually listening to the story, in favor of mockingly mimicking each gesture back at Richie. Ben and Beverly, to their eternal credit, somehow don’t look embarrassed on anyone’s behalf. In fact, they both look unironically delighted to see everyone.

Beverly gives Audra a hug, expresses that it’s  _ so nice to meet you, Bill talks about you so much _ . Up close, Audra has to admit, she does look a lot like Beverly. They really could be sisters.

Bill claps Ben on the back, offers some vague statement of congratulations. Ben smiles at Bill in what looks like, for all the world, an appeal for approval.

“I'm so happy for you both.” Bill offers, which seems to be all the approval Ben needs. They drag each other in for a real hug, and whatever unplaceable dynamic Audra had sensed before eases into a much more familiar comfortable friendship.

Then someone orders a celebratory round of drinks.  _ Isn’t it crazy that so many people came _ , Ben is commenting, like it’s a surprise that people want to come celebrate with him and Beverly, the two most charismatic people Audra has ever met. Richie teaches Beverly, in her bone-white designer dress, to take a hands-free shot of some dark-colored liquor. Ben gets drawn into Mike’s turtle rant. Audra's life flashes before her eyes as Beverly narrowly avoids becoming the  _ before _ picture in an Oxy-clean commercial.

* * *

There’s the entire plane ride home to decompress. Bill is back to the killer spiders, so he’s clicking away at his laptop next to her. He’s back to normal Dr.Jekyll, after whatever unhinged twelve-year-old Mr.Hyde surfaced at the wedding yesterday.

Does Audra get like that with her friends from middle school? She doesn’t think so. She doesn’t really talk to them anymore. She had a wine night with a few old high school friends, once. That had been fairly relaxed. Maybe it’s just something that happens with Bill and his old friends. The rest of them are probably normal most of the time, too, and they only turn into the human version of strobe lights when they’re all together.

So it’s nice that Audra finally got the chance to meet them all, and it was sweet to see the almost blindingly intense devotion they all have to Bill. Now she’s ready to put on a face mask, and sit back with a cup of tea.

“If I can stick to the outline on this,” Bill says, “I can probably finish in time for September.”

“In time for what?” she asks him.

“That’s when Eddie and Richie have  _ their _ wedding.” Bill says.

“Hm.” Audra agrees. She wonders if Patty Uris has any plans to suddenly contract food poisoning again, come September. Maybe Audra will join her.

**Author's Note:**

> the movie: bill, go check your mail, you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it  
me: wedding invite wedding invite wedding invite  
the movie: it's a final letter from stan!  
me: guess this movie is gonna end with me crying
> 
> anyways this is how i like to imagine things could have gone in an everyone lives au


End file.
